Panoptic Modes
The Bartons' advocacy of using panoptic modes in technical visuals is an excellent illustration of the concept of privileging of information as it relates to postmodernism. Barton and Barton claim that viewers are empowered by visuals using both panoptic modes: synoptic and analytic. The two modes together are a way of giving the viewer much more information than would be possible with either one alone, in effect lessening the degree to which certain information is privileged. Using the panoptic modes allows for detailed information to be displayed along with global information. In the example of Constantine Anderson's drawing of downtown Manhattan, viewers not only gets information about where various buildings and streets are, they get a tremendous amount of detail in the appearance of those buildings and streets (e.g., windows on the buildings, trees on the street).Viewers of the Anderson drawing of Manhattan are empowered because that drawing privileges less information than might be expected of other displays of the area. The drawing is effective because it doesn't privilege global information (which it might very well have done and still been useful) or detailed information: as with the original concept of the Panopticon, viewers can see the whole at once while having the ability of seeing a specific detail simply by focusing their eyes on the detail.
The Core of Postmodernism 
Seeing
vs. Reading Maps 
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